What’s New with Event Promotion and Registration?

We are excited to release a new feature that will help with your event reporting needs.

Currently in the product, you can export all of the registration data into a single file.

If you only wanted a small part of the data, you previously had to delete the columns and create filters in your favorite CSV editor.

But one of the things we’ve heard from customers is that often, they only need a portion of the data.

For example, you may just want a list of people who registered so that you can keep track of attendance at the event. Or, if you’re asking specific questions during the registration process, you may just want to export the list of responses to help with your planning.

Today, we are pleased to announce a new event registration that will make it easier than ever to export the information that you need: Custom Reports!

You can now pick the column groups and apply registration, payment, and date filters on the data you want to export.

After someone has registered for your event, go to the Dashboard

Click on the “Reporting” tab

Click on “Export Report” and select “Custom Report”

You are now brought to a new page where you can build your own report.

On the left, you can select column groups to be displayed in your report.

On the right, you can filter the data by date, registration status, and payment status.

FEBRUARY 2014

New Feature Alert: Name Badges!

We’re happy to announce a new product integration with Avery that helps customers print name badges (and more) for events.

The overview

If you’re using Constant Contact for event promotion and registration you can add a “Badge Info” section to their registration form to collect things like name, company, and job title that easily turn into name badges using Avery’s free online tool. Users can then print out badges using Avery’s stock paper.

2. Registrants sign up for the event and fill in the badge-related questions.

3. The event organizer clicks “Print Name Badge” from the event dashboard and is brought to Avery’s design center.

4. The event organizer then picks a product (name badge, table card, etc.) and a layout.

5. All of the information is collected on the registration form in the badge section, which can be added to the badge.

6. Users can edit all badges at once or make design changes to a single badge.

7. Users can then print the badges on coordinating Avery stock paper.

Events and name badges go hand in hand, but don’t forget you can use Avery to print many different things like table tent cards (as seen below), shipping labels, cards, t-shirts, etc.

PREVIOUS UPDATES

OCTOBER 2013

You asked, we listened. And we take your feedback very seriously. This year alone, we’ve spent the majority of our time working on customer requests and pains, and we will continue to do so. Based on your feedback, we’ve fixed seven of our top 10 biggest customer requests over the past few months, so please keep the feedback coming!

Event users can now edit and resend event emails! This was our #1 top-requested enhancement and we are happy to deliver it. Event users will be able to edit and resend any event email for any purpose. For example, you can now create an invitation, send it, and then use that same email as a starting point for your next communication (email to non-responders or registrants). You can edit the email or simply resend it again.

Additional enhancements:

We’ve added the ability to easily export your lists of registrants, cancels, abandons, and non-responders, and we are not stopping there with reporting enhancements. We are also working on a totally new and improved reporting experience in the event tool. Event users will be able to filter/pick the information they want to export to CSV. Additionally, we will be releasing new pre-built reports that you’ve asked for in the product for reports like “declines,” “unpaid registrants,” etc.

Updated PayPal text/button on registration forms

Based on customer feedback, we’ve changed our PayPal payment option to be more clear and inviting to your registrants. We’ve changed the PayPal to read, “Pay with PayPal or Credit Card” and added clarifying text that explains that registrants do not need a PayPal account to use PayPal.

Coming Soon:

Better Reporting! Easily create an event report with only the information you need.AUGUST 2013

A New Look for Constant Contact Events

Constant Contact’s Event team is happy to announce the redesign/enhancement of our user interface within the Event product. Our new Event flow will feature a new “registration” step that allows users to button up all the details of their registration pages before moving on to promoting the event.

After making the event live, users will notice a new “Dashboard Page” that displays all the important stats of the event, such as:

Suggested next steps

Total people registered

Days left until registration closes/days left until the event

Advice/guidance on what to do next

Invitation results

Declines/non-responders

Reporting

View/manage your registrations

Once you set up the basics for your event and have made your event live, you can make edits at any time. From your dashboard page you can edit your event basics, event settings, confirmation messages, and landing page by selecting the ‘Edit Event’ button.

If you need to make additional changes to your registration form don’t forget to close registration while you are making the changes and reopen it when you have completed your changes.

Keep an eye out for even more event enhancements from Constant Contact. We are committed to creating a simple, powerful, affordable event tool for small businesses and organizations.

MAY 2013

You asked for it, and now it’s here! Constant Contact now supports discount codes for events. Here are highlights of the new feature:

Give a % or a $ amount off.

You can choose whether the code applies only to a certain fee/fees or the entire order (includes registrant, guests, and any items).

Limit the amount of times a code can be redeemed.

APRIL 2013

Whew, lots of things to talk about! Our event specialists have been working hard to bring you some exciting new features. Here are the new features and enhancements:

1. Access Codes

Want to treat your VIP’s to a free event? Now you can with our new Access Code feature! You can create event fees, and mark them as “hidden – revealed by code,” this way you can offer special pricing and special access for your event. The easiest example would be “enter VIP123 to get free admission to the event.”

Other uses for Access Codes:

Admin use: create special fees and codes for your event that only you will use. This way you can arrange special deals or register people for free without showing it to the public on your event registration form.

Private Events: Make your event “private” by requiring a code upon registration. Think of this as a password protected event. You can easily create an event and make your event private by forcing all registrants to enter a code in order to register. This is a nice solution for member-only events, private parties, shadowy cult gatherings, or any other event that you want to keep private.

Affiliate/Event Promoter tracking: use promo codes to track event affiliates/resellers. The Phantom Gourmet wine festival in Boston uses local wine retailers (Andover Liquors for example) to sell event passes. They use promo codes to track the sources of their registrations, and to give their resellers a kickback or affiliate fee. So when I’m at Andover Liquors buying wine, I can get a discounted event fee buy entering the code “Andover123,” as a promo code for the wine event. It’s a win all around. Shoppers get rewarded for shopping at Andover Liquors by getting discounted passes for the wine event. Andover Liquors gets more shoppers coming in, and gets a nice finder’s fee from the wine event, the wine event gets a new promotion channel, everyone is happy!

We have updated our “event description” feature. Give us a short, catchy description of your event and we’ll make sure to display it on your homepage, your registration form, and in your confirmation messages.

3. Email Notifications

Get instant notification when someone registers for your event. This feature is in beta and we will be rounding it out in future releases, but you asked for it, so we wanted to get it out ASAP.

4. Copy Event Enhancements

We know our customers want to create a beautiful event once, then copy it again and again to save time, so we have enhanced our copy feature to allow you to select which event emails (invitations, reminders, emails to registrants, etc) get copied over.

This newly updated app will give your registrants a quick and easy check-in process while helping you spend less time at the registration table and more time on the event. This is a FREE app for Constant Contact event promotion and registration users, so please download the app and let us know what you think!

Thanks for checking in! The team has been focused on smoothing out customer pain points and adding new features to help you have a more successful event.

Here is a look at our newest features and improvements:

1. Visual Enhancements to Registration Forms

We’ve modernized our registration form to make your event look great and increase registration rates.

Here are the high level changes:

Labels for the registration form fields are now above the field

Your fees and items now appear in neat, organized tables

2. New Event Check-in App for iOS

The new Event Check-in App for iOS allows you to check registrants in at the door and mark them “attended.” This new Check-in App also allows you to check registrants in by name, ticket #, or by scanning the QR code on a registrants Passbook pass, paper ticket, or mobile ticket. Additionally, you can use this app to track your event registration numbers on the go.

DECEMBER 2012

1. Add Your Event Tickets to Passbook

Your registrants can now add their event tickets to Passbook on Apple devices with the iOS6 operating system. This makes it easy for registrants to store and access event tickets. Passes will update automatically if event details change, keeping your registrants fully informed about the event. Read more about Passbook.

2. Copy Event Improvements

We’ve heard your feedback loud and clear around copying your events with all associated event emails. Now, when you copy an event, we will also copy over all your event invites, emails to registrants, and emails to non-responders, which you can edit and reuse each time you copy.

Note: Copying events requires that you, the user, and Constant Contact, the software company, do everything we can to make sure you don’t send out event promotions with out of date content, old event dates, or stale event information. To make sure your event gets updated as best as possible, we have added {placeholders} to your event invitations, which automatically pull in the latest event details. When editing your event, just click Preview to see how your event will look when it gets sent to your invitee list.

OCTOBER 2012

EventSpot has radically enhanced our ticket functionality, adding new features and information to make your event check-in process less hectic and more informative for event organizers.

You already use Constant Contact for online promotion, registration and payments, so we hope you will also bring your event check-in online as well.

Our new tickets use QR codes for check-ins, so you can leave your clipboard and highlighter at home. All you need is your smartphone with a QR code reader like QR Droid for Android or Red Laser for iPhone.

Just use your Constant Contact login information and you can quickly check registrants in to your event. If your registrants don’t bring a ticket, we have a manual check-in app that works with Android or iPhone you can use to check people in by name or within the product dashboard.

We have added an “address” section to our new credit card feature. Now, your online credit card payments will be transacted in a more confident fashion, which means fewer failed transactions, and possibly even lower rates from your payment processor.

SEPTEMBER 2012

1. Manually register someone during or after an event

One of the advantages to using Constant Contact for events is that it helps you track your registrants and attendees. However, we’ve heard loud and clear that the tracking doesn’t end when the event begins. To help you keep your event tracking straight, we have enhanced our tool to allow you to manually register someone both during, and after the event. You can register people from within the tool and from your “Event Details” page.

*Note – it may make sense to enable the “at the door” payment option, so that you (the event holder) can register people quickly without having to also run their credit card.

2. Manually decline invitees

We’ve learned that your invitees don’t always click the “Decline” link on an invitation, and that instead they send you email or give you a call to tell you they can’t make it to your event. In the past we didn’t have a great way for you to simply add someone to your “decline” list, but that is now fixed.

In the same area that you manually register someone, you can now manually decline someone as well. This way the declining person won’t continue to get event promotions and reminders, and you can keep your registration list straight.

3. Improved email editing

Our email editor has new drag and drop functionality to make creating emails even easier.

AUGUST 2012

New Credit Card Payment Option – Your event registrants can now simply take out their credit card and pay for your event seamlessly on your registration page, without being bounced over to a third party site. This new credit card payment option will help you look more professional and lose less registrants due to abandons/drop off. You’ll be able to process their payments via ProPay and Authorize.Net.

This new payment option provides a great experience for your registrants. To make this a great experience for you, we have partnered with ProPay to offer special discounted rates for Constant Contact customers. Check out ProPay’s special Constant Contact rates.

Mobile Enhancements –We have made your registration form and payment options mobile friendly, making it easy for your attendees to register and pay for your event right from their iPhone or Android device.